Cathy Liska Choosing a coach with the experience, training, skill, and process to best meet your purpose is ideal. The reality for many is that you do have other considerations. The availability of a coach and their fees are reality-based pieces of information that influence your choice.
Start with deciding on your own ideal budget and schedule. As you begin researching and interviewing coaches, check your ideal against what is available and assess whether or not to adjust. To narrow your choice to a few coaches, include consideration of their fees and availability. Of course often this information is available only after an initial interview. Here is an interesting thought: often prospective client’s share they were worried that my fees and availability would not work for them and they are pleasantly surprised when it does work. The lesson from this is that when you identify a coach you want to interview and your only hesitation is their fees and availability, interview that coach!
Sometimes the question is whether coaches are open to negotiating fees and bartering. Some coaches say yes, others say not. If your only barrier to engaging a coach is their fee, ask whether there are possibilities. Share your reasons for this as a barrier. Some coaches will simply state respectfully that this is not something they negotiate. If a coach is open to the conversation then it may make the coaching relationship possible.
